Federal Election Preview - New South Wales

With just under a third of the seats in the House of Representatives, New South Wales is a state that is always critical to the outcome of a Federal election.

It is very difficult for either side of politics to win if they do badly in New South Wales, while a good result in the state can cancel out poor results elsewhere. Labor has never won a Federal election without also winning a majority of seats in NSW, while the last time the Coalition won without a majority in NSW was 1961, when the Menzies government scraped back into office with a 2-seat majority.

Queensland and New South Wales were the bedrock of the Howard government's majority. At the 1998 and 2001 elections, the Howard government's majority north of the Murray contrasted with a Labor majority across the rest of the country. After increasing its majority at the 2004 election, the Howard government held 48 seats in NSW and Queensland compared to 27 for Labor.

Labor's 2007 victory under Kevin Rudd delivered Labor 43 of the 78 seats north of the Murray. In 2010 under Julia Gillard, Queensland slipped badly for Labor, and the Coalition recorded a majority of the two-party preferred vote in NSW. But the vagaries of single member electorates and marginal seat campaigning meant that Labor turned its minority vote into a majority of the seats in NSW, 26 of the state's 48 electorates.

On paper Labor lost four seats in 2010, but two of those were notional Labor seats following a redistribution, and a third seat was vacant. Maxine McKew in Bennelong was the only defeated Labor MP, returning to earth with a thud after her famous defeat of John Howard in 2007. (See 2010 results below)

The concern for the Labor Party as the 2013 election approached was that Julia Gillard was leading NSW to the sort of landslide defeat that state Labor suffered in 2011. It was this concern by many sitting NSW Labor MPs, and the state party, that played an important part in Kevin Rudd returning to the Labor leadership.

2010 Election Result

Party

Candi­dates

Votes

Pct

Swing

Seats
Won

Seats
Change

Australian Labor Party

48

1 494 490

37.28

-6.84

26

-4

Liberal Party

41

1 470 146

36.67

+4.05

16

+4

National Party

10

317 867

7.93

+0.02

4

..

The Greens

48

410 405

10.24

+2.36

..

..

Independents

37

172 921

4.31

+1.00

2

..

Christian Democrats

26

54 544

1.36

-0.56

..

..

One Nation

14

19 182

0.48

+0.27

..

..

Family First

16

17 453

0.44

-0.43

..

..

Others

59

52 310

1.30

+0.13

..

..

Formal

299

4 009 318

93.17

-1.88

48

..

Informal

293 763

6.83

+1.88

Total Vote / Turnout

4 303 081

93.33

-1.66

Two-Party Preferred

Labor

1 958 077

48.84

-4.84

Coalition

2 051 241

51.16

+4.84

There have been seismic shifts in party fortunes over the last two decades in NSW. In 1993 the state played a critical part in Paul Keating's re-election. Labor polled 54.4% of the state-wide 2-party preferred vote in 1993 and won 33 of the 50 seats, proportionally Labor's best post-war result. Three years later, John Howard's victory saw a 7% swing and reduced Labor to 20 seats. In both votes and seats, the 1996 NSW result was Labor's worst since the defeat of the Whitlam government in 1975.

The graph below plots Labor's 2-party preferred vote in New South Wales against Labor's result in the rest of Australia. The graph shows that Labor has consistently polled more strongly in NSW than the rest of the country, backing the old description of NSW as being a 'natural' Labor state.

Only three times since 1958 has the NSW Labor's 2-party preferred vote dipped below the rest of the country. The first was at the 1987 election, held in the last year of the unpopular Unsworth state Labor government. The second was in 2001 when the debate over asylum seekers in the wake of the Tampa incident seemed to have greater resonance in NSW. The third and largest gap opened up in 2010.

Some of the narrowing between NSW and the rest of the country has come about because of Labor's improved performance in the the second largest state, Victoria. However, there has also been some weakening of tradtional Labor support in NSW. This was demonstrated savagely at the 2011 state election when Barry O'Farrell led the NSW Coalition to its largest ever state victory, Labor's vote falling to a level not seen since the party was in its infancy in 1904.

John Howard's electoral success was built on the political instincts instilled in him by the political culture of his home state. In a Liberal Party littered with leaders and Prime Ministers from Victoria, John Howard is far and away the most significant conservative politician to ever emerge from New South Wales. He grew up in the culture of the NSW Liberal Party, a party that so often has played second fiddle to the Labor Party. Liberal success in NSW has always required an understanding of the NSW Labor Party, and it has been said of Howard that he understood the culture of NSW Labor better than many Labor members from other states.

In a city with the nation's highest land prices, Howard government policies that delivered tax benefits to young families and kept interest rates low paid handsome political rewards in Sydney. That was at least until interest rates started to rise after 2004.

Sydney is also Australia's most multicultural city, with a third of the population born overseas. For many years Labor was better at tapping into Sydney's migrant communities, and past Howard dalliances with migration politics were milked for political benefit by NSW Labor. In the post-Howard era, the NSW Liberal Party seems to have re-built its connections with Sydney's migrant communities, as was highlighted at the 2011 state election.

Two years ago NSW voters, and Sydney voters in particular, took out their frustrations on state Labor. This year it looked to be the turn of Federal Labor to feel the wrath of voters.. While Julia Gillard led Labor, double digit swings looked possible in parts of western Sydney.

Polling indicates that Kevin Rudd has restored some political balance to the contest. It is impossible to know whether Rudd's initial poll boost for Labor will last until polling day, but seats above 5% now look less likely to see big swings. For more marginal seats, it is hard to see how Labor's state woes won't infect the federal campaign.

The battleground below lists every NSW Labor seat under 10%, including all seats that had looked at risk for Labor before the change of leadership.

In 2010 there were two elections taking place in NSW. In Sydney the swing was strongly against Labor, but in the rest of the state, the swing was more variable, favouring sitting members on both sides of the political divide. Labor increased its majorities in a string of seats outside Sydney.

Labor will again be defending two north coast seats, Page (ALP 4.2%) and Richmond (ALP 7.0%). Labor increased its margin in both seats at the last election, and in the last two decades the seats have become litmus test seats. Page has been won by the party that formed government at every election since 1990 and Richmond has only gone with the wrong party once in the same period.

An even stronger bellwether is Eden-Monaro (ALP 2.3%). Based on Queanbeyan and the far south coast, Eden-Monaro has been won the the party that formed government at every election since 1972. It was gained for Labor at the 2007 election by former military lawyer Mike Kelly, and he also increased his majority in 2010. With much of the electorate obtaining its news from Canberra rather than Sydney, it may behave differently to Sydney seats.

Two other key seats that lie outside of the Sydney basin are Robertson (ALP 1.0%) and Dobell (ALP 5.1%). They lie on the central coast just north of Sydney and usually behave like outer suburban mortgage belt seats. That wasn't the case in 2010, with Labor surprisingly increasing its majority in both seats. In part this may have been caused by Labor's decision to dump controversial Robertson MP Belinda Neal as its candidate, but in neighbouring Dobell, Labor has even more controversy in 2013 with former Labor MP Craig Thomson re-contesting as an Independent and helping to remind voters of allegations concerning the Heath Services Union. Dobell is more at risk for Labor than its 5.1% margin suggests, while Robertson remains a key marginal seat by any measure.

In outer western Sydney, the key seat of Lindsay (ALP 1.1%) will attract enormous attention. Lindsay has been won by the party that formed government at every election since it was first contested in 1984. The Liberal Party won the local state seat of Penrith with a massive by-election swing just before the 2010 federal election, a swing that NSW Labor blamed in part on Kevin Rudd. How ironic that the state party has now backed Rudd to try and retain a seat it felt he couldn't win in 2010.

Also in western Sydney, Blacktown based Greenway (ALP 0.9%) has become a more marginal seat due to the rapid expansion of new housing estates on Sydney's north-west growth corridor. It was a safe Labor seat from its first contest in 1984 until 2004, when like many other outer suburban seats with high rates of young families buying homes, the electorate was gained by the Liberal Party on its campaign on whether Labor could be trusted on interest rates. The seat's boundaries have been radically re-drawn at successive redistribution, but the seat has returned to something like the 2004 boundaries on which it was won by the Liberal Party.

Two other seats in the middle band of Sydney's suburbs will be critical. Banks (ALP 1.5%) and Reid (2.7%) have always been Labor seats, but both became very different seats in 2010 following a major redistribution. Banks had been a southern Bankstown Council, seat for decades, but in 2010 sitting Labor MP Daryl Melham found himself contesting a seat suddenly stretching east to Hurstville. Similarly for John Murphy, large parts of his abolished seat of Lowe amalgamated with parts fo the formerly safe Labor seat of Reid. Both seats looked certain to be lost while Julia Gillard led Labor, but are now likely to be more vigorously defended. Banks takes in several previously safe Labor seats won by the Liberal Party at the 2011 state election, while the western end of Reid contains the state seat of Auburn which stayed with Labor in 2011.

Next door to Reid, Parramatta (ALP 4.4%) is another seat that Labor now has a better chance of holding. In recent years the electorate has seen a huge growth in voters with South Asian heritage. Parramatta is the major business district of western Sydney and at the hub of major transport networks, and it also overlaps with several seats gained by the Liberal Party at the 2011 state election.

Beyond five percent, Labor holds several seats that recorded large swings to the Coalition in 2010. Some of these swings may have been due to Labor concentrating campaign effort in more marginal seats, and there was also a surge in informal voting in many safe Labor seats at the 2010 election. All are seats that Labor was concerned about losing while Julia Gillard was Prime Minister, but some look less at risk since the Rudd return.

On his first weekend back as Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd headed off to campaign in Macquarie (LIB 1.3%), a seat that recorded one of the smaller swings against Labor in 2010. Beyond Macquarie, it seems hard to believe Labor can win Macarthur (LIB 3.0%) after two decades of trying, or Bennelong (LIB 3.1%) without the special focus provided by it being John Howard's seat in 2007. Labor has been trying to win back southern Sydney Hughes (LIB 5.2%) and Hunter-based Paterson (LIB 5.3%) for more than a decade, while even with the retirement of Joanna Gash, the Liberal Party should be able to retain Gilmore (LIB 5.3%) on the south coast.

The National Party are certain to recover the seats of retiring Independents Tony Windsor in New England and Rob Oakeshott in Lyne. Both would normally be safe National Party seats, and there was understandable fury by some conservative voters that both MPs helped put Labor back into office. New England will still attract some attention courtesy of it being the vehicle by which Barnaby Joyce will transfer to the House of Representatives.

Past Elections Results

Primary Vote %

2PP %

Seats Won

Election

ALP

LIB

NAT

DEM

GRN

ONP

OTH

ALP

ALP

LIB

NAT

OTH

Total

1975

45.5

39.7

11.8

..

..

..

3.1

46.8

17

19

9

..

45

1977

42.4

35.9

11.3

8.5

..

..

1.9

47.6

17

18

8

..

43

1980

46.4

35.7

10.5

5.7

..

..

1.8

50.4

18

16

9

..

43

1983

50.1

31.6

11.0

4.8

..

..

2.6

54.1

24

11

8

..

43

1984

48.3

32.8

10.5

5.9

..

..

2.5

52.9

29

12

10

..

51

1987

45.1

33.3

11.8

6.3

..

..

3.5

50.3

28

13

10

..

51

1990

41.2

29.1

11.2

10.2

1.5

..

6.8

52.1

30

12

8

1

51

1993

48.3

31.8

9.8

2.8

1.4

..

5.9

54.4

33

8

8

1

50

1996

39.6

33.5

12.1

6.5

2.6

..

5.8

47.4

20

19

10

1

50

1998

40.1

30.5

7.9

4.2

2.7

9.0

5.7

51.5

22

18

9

1

50

2001

36.4

33.6

9.2

4.2

4.8

4.8

7.0

48.3

20

21

7

2

50

2004

36.7

36.2

9.2

1.1

8.1

1.4

7.4

48.1

21

21

6

2

50

2007

44.1

32.6

7.9

0.3

7.9

0.2

7.0

53.7

28

15

5

1

49

2010

37.3

36.7

7.9

0.3

10.2

0.5

7.1

48.8

26

16

4

2

48

Ted Mack won the seat of North Sydney in 1990 and 1993. Peter Andren won Calare in 1996, 1998, 2001 and 2004. Tony Windsor has won New England at four elections since 2001, and Rob Oakeshott won Lyne in 2010. Both Windsor and Oakeshott have announced their retirements ahead of the 2013 election.